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View all search resultsIndonesia’s weakening currency and possible hidden fiscal bill
Whether Rp 18,000 per dollar is the crisis line is not the question. The real danger is the deficit, Danantara, oil and the Fed sitting off the visible balance sheet.
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A teller counts Rp 100,000 banknotes on Oct. 27, 2025 at BNI’s Pasar Baru branch in Central Jakarta. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja)
The rupiah is not collapsing. But it is no longer merely floating.
On June 8, 2026, the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) of Bank Indonesia (BI) stood at Rp 18,171 per United States dollar, after the rupiah exchange rate stood near 18,126 per dollar on June 5 and touched 18,031 on June 4.
The rupiah has already lost more than 7.5 percent year to date, among Asia's weakest performers.
Is Rp 18,000 per dollar the crisis line? No. That is the wrong question.
Indonesia remembers 1998, not because it was a currency event but because it was a national balance sheet event. By January 1998, the rupiah had fallen around 70 percent from mid-July 1997, Jakarta shares were down roughly 50 percent and external debt stood near US$140 billion. Later work by the International Monetary Fund put the country’s 1998 gross domestic product at around 13 percent and inflation near 70 percent.
Indonesia in 2026 is not that country. Growth was around 5 percent in 2025, and the IMF projects 5.1 percent for 2026. General government debt is near 41.3 percent of GDP and the current account deficit around 1.0 percent.
Meanwhile, BI reported official reserve assets of $144.9 billion at end-May 2026, down from $146.2 billion at end-April. That was 5.6 months of imports, or 5.5 months including government external debt service, still above the three-month adequacy benchmark.
